


Devastation and Reform

by afictionado



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-11
Updated: 2013-08-11
Packaged: 2017-12-23 04:19:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/921912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afictionado/pseuds/afictionado
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With the pieces of the Magic Box surrounding them, world still intact, it feels like some sort of re-birth. (Post-"Grave" piece) [Orig. published: March 25, 2010]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Devastation and Reform

*****

She helps him to his feet with an arm braced around his waist, holding his other arm around her shoulders. This time, she minds his injuries and helps him duck the fallen shelf as they head for the door. She's very glad he didn't die. Even though she had been completely prepared to tell him what she needed to tell him when she thought he was a goner. 

Now, with the pieces of the Magic Box surrounding them, world still intact, it feels like some sort of re-birth. Like a second chance, sort of. She thinks of her vengeance amulet and idly considers the consequences of just smashing it; giving it up without bothering to tell D'Hoffryn. Then she can't help but wonder if Giles knows she's into vengeance again, and whether he's upset with her for it. The thought of Giles being upset with her is always an unpleasant one.

She decides that if he knows about the vengeance, and _is_ upset, that she'll promise to give it up. She can do that for Giles. Because he's... Giles. And though she's not entirely certain what that means to the fullest degree, she knows just by the tumbling of her stomach that it's very important. _He's_ very important. To her, anyway. 

She had missed him when he was gone. That's one of the things she had wanted to tell him. When he was in England, there was nobody fussing around her, getting all cutely and British-ly flustered when she would say the wrong thing. There was nobody to smile patiently at her when she was trying to help the gang, knowing that she ultimately means well despite not always being able to show it. There was nobody to ask her opinion when none of the others would bother. There was nobody to cry on when Xander left her at the altar.

She had _really_ missed him then. She knew Buffy, and Willow, and everyone else would take Xander's side, because they were his friend first, but Giles? Giles would have stuck by her. He would have let her cry on him, maybe, if he wasn't wearing anything too important or expensive. She imagined countless times that he might have even produced a handkerchief from some pocket to dab at her tears; she would smile and thank him for being there for her, and he would tell her he would always be there. And then she would want to kiss him, and--

"Anya?"

"Hmm?" Right. Giles is injured. Not dead, thankfully, but still looking pretty terrible.

"May we, um... s-stop for a moment? I'm feeling a bit out of breath."

"Oh! Of course, yes. I'm sorry." She's been apologizing to him since she found him lying in the Magic Box ruins. She thinks maybe she'll be apologizing for a long time. If she could have just remained strong, resisted Willow and her stupid witchy mind tricks, he wouldn't have gotten hurt in the first place. 

She helps prop him up against the side of a building, and he closes his eyes, leaning his head back against the brick. Anya watches his chest heave, knowing he's in a lot of pain but somehow still unable to stop herself from wondering what he looks like without his sweater on. She feels herself flush at the thought, and she looks away. 

"Are you alright?" he asks her, and the question sounds so out of place that she looks at him for a moment like he's kind of insane.

(Which, she always suspected he _might_ be, just a little bit -- although the kindness and that strangely powerful sex appeal nicely countered any bouts of insanity.)

"I'm fine. I think I should be asking _you_ that. You're the one that looks so terrible."

"Yes. Right." He ducks his head a little, sounding a little sad and maybe a little exasperated, though there's a small smirk playing at the corners of his lips. "I have so missed your candor."

Anya can't help it. She smiles, brightly. "You missed me? Really?"

He looks up at her then with that very cute, lopsided Giles-smile, and she kind of wants to throw her arms around him again. "Yes," he chuckles. "I missed you, Anya."

She tilts her head, then. "Not more than Buffy or Dawn or non-crazy Willow, though, right?"

"Sometimes, strangely... more." He averts his eyes again, smiling softly in the direction of the concrete sidewalk they're standing on, and Anya is struck again by the thought of how gorgeous his smile -- true smile -- is.

That's another thing she had wanted to tell him. She loves his smile, always has. There are other things too, though. She wanted to tell him that she's sorry that he was made to feel useless in Sunnydale -- a feeling that she unwittingly has begun to share with him. She wanted to tell him that even if Buffy and Willow and all of them had no use for him anymore, she still would. And not just because they're in business together.

She wanted to tell him that she still thinks about when they were under that spell, and he kissed her. She thinks about his hands on her waist, his commanding presence when he so suavely dipped her... and of course she thinks about his lips. She wanted to tell him that if she thinks about it hard enough, she can still feel the warmth of his hands, and can sometimes even taste his lips. She wanted to tell him that she had a _very_ hard time staying faithful to Xander when the spell had been broken and they were cleaning up the Magic Box. Because all she'd wanted to do at the time was knock the broom out of his hand, throw him down on the table, and... do some very sexy, but unfaithful, things to him.

"You missed me more?" She's struck with the urge to ask him why, though she thinks maybe she shouldn't press her luck just yet. 

"Sometimes, yes."

"I missed you, you know," she makes sure to tell him. "A lot."

"Anya, you..." he purses his lips and then makes a few soundless words with them. She can't help but pay rapt attention to the motion. "You had said there were things you wanted to tell me." He looks up at her then. "What were they?"

She looks into his eyes, admiring the green, with the little patch of brown in the left one. "It's... hard to tell you with your eyes open, and... looking at me."

"Oh." He looks confused for a second, and then gives her another of those devastating smiles. She should really get him to a hospital -- maybe all the smiling is the result of a concussion? She should ask him, probably. Does he feel concussed? Can _anyone_ feel when they're concussed?

"Here. Would it be better if I closed them?" He humors her, closing his eyes, still smiling just a little.

Anya smiles back at him, even though he can't see her. This is good, she decides, because she most likely looks very stupid right now, with her big stupid grin that she can't get rid of. Oh well, it's all his fault -- he certainly is not allowed to make fun of her for something that's his fault.

"Anya, darling, would you please just say it already? I feel as though I could fall asleep."

Maybe it's the 'darling' that does it -- it reminds her just a little too much of that spell, that relationship that felt a little too real and the kiss that meant just a little too much. Or maybe it's the fact that he's still smiling, all handsome and British like he doesn't even know how handsomely British he is. Anya's not sure. But whatever it is makes her kind of abandon the idea of telling him what she wants to tell him, and she just... kisses him instead.

He makes a soft surprised noise against her lips, and she feels his eyes pop open to look at her for a second before closing again. Her hands are on his shoulders, pressing him as gently as she can against the building. There's no spell clouding their minds now -- just a brush with death and, possibly, a concussion.

She pulls back when he remains frozen against her, ducking her gaze away automatically as she tucks stray bangs behind her ear. "I'm sorry, Giles. I-I don't know why--"

But then Giles leans in and kisses her. And it's better than that stupid fake kiss during Willow's stupid spell. It's _real_. Well... the last one was real too, of course, no matter how much they try to ignore it, but this one? It's _really_ real. No spells, no imagined engagements. It's just her lips and his lips and her hands on his shoulders and his hands on her waist. It's just tongues and breath, and... 

Uh-oh. A moan that does not sound sexy in nature. 

She breaks away, lips parting noisily. "I'm sorry! Are you okay?"

"Darling," he calls her again, and she thinks she could hear him say that endearment in every sentence and never tire of it. "Please do stop apologizing." 

"It's just... you're in pain. You're probably really concussed, Giles, and here I am throwing myself at you. What I should have done was just told you what I wanted to tell you in the first place."

"Which is what, Anya?" His voice is almost a whisper, as light as his hand on her cheek, and she tilts her head into the feather touch, smiling.

"That... that you can't die. Not for a very long time. Because... you're important to me, Giles. Rupert. _Really_ important."

Yes. That's a good place to start. After pouncing on the man and kissing him literally until it hurt, she should probably take it slow with the revelations.

"Well." Another breathtaking smile that really makes her want to pounce on him again, followed by, "You've become rather important to me as well, Anya."

She wants to kiss him again, almost embarrassingly desperately, and she thinks maybe he'd like to kiss her again too. But when he winces, she helps him away from the wall instead, telling him, "We really need to get you to a hospital now."

"Yes, splendid idea."

"And Buffy and the others will be fine," she tells him next, knowing where his brain is headed just by the look on his face. "I can even check on them, if you'd like, while you're being pumped full of drugs."

Giles chuckles a little, painfully, and nods as she helps him down the street. "I would appreciate that, Anya, thank you." He presses a kiss to her hair, murmuring against the crown of her head, "And then afterwards, perhaps, you can finish telling me everything you needed to tell me. Because I have some things I should tell you as well."

"Splendid idea." She echoes his British-ness at him and smiles when he playfully glares.

Yes, everything she needs to tell him can wait. It seems they'll have plenty of time now.

 

**FIN**


End file.
